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Google at Age 10

Google applied for incorporation as a business 10 years ago Thursday, according to a timeline supplied by the company. The application was accepted on Sept. 7, which is Sunday.

In that decade, the search engine company has quickly emerged as the most successful business on the Web, and many expect it to dominate the next era of computing as thoroughly as Microsoft dominated the era of personal computers.

Here’s a quick snapshot of Google by the numbers along with some comparisons to Microsoft. The sources of the data are the companies, Yahoo Finance and comScore.

Google’s age: 10
Microsoft’s age: 33

Google’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $19.6 billion
Microsoft’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $60.4 billion

Microsoft’s revenue at age 10: $140 million
($279 million in today’s dollars)

Google’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $2.2 million
Microsoft’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $6.9 million

Google net income in the last 4 quarters: $4.85 billion
Microsoft’s net income in the last 4 quarters: $17.6 billion

Google employees, as of June 30th: 19,604
Microsoft employees, as of May 31st:89,809

yeah but microsoft at age ten was microsoft in 1985.. the environment in 85 for a software company can’t compare on any level to the environment or potential of a web-based company today. When google began it immeadiately had more potential to capture profit tha nk microsoft did 10 years in… just by the sheer number of internet users today vs computer users in 85

The comparison of the “time to dominance” of Google vs. Microsoft illustrates more the dramatic shortening of market expansion times possible on the web vs. with traditional (i.e. offline) distribution channels than it does any intrinsic value of either company. Microsoft was the dominant player in their time, for the distribution and customer acquisition models that existed then–Google is the winner in a world where new companies acquires customers quickly on the web. The real question: how long before Google gets out-Googled?

“Microsoft’s revenue at age 10: $140 million
($279 million in today’s dollars)”

I’m not a fan of Microsoft by any means, but comparing Google’s revenue at age 10 to that of Microsoft at the same age is a bit unfair. Microsoft turned 10 in 1985. How many computers were in use in 1985 and what was the total market for software at that point? Both Google and Microsoft have accomplished great things, but to compare 2008 Google to 1985 Microsoft is absurd.

I am surprised that people get still Googled!
In my opinion, Yahoo in its heydey was much more exciting, atleast for an end user, than what google is today, even taking into account all the exciting products they have created. Atleast yahoo did not have duds running in market as beta.
Let’s not forget that Google got its biggest boost when yahoo decided to use Google as its default search engine and till date its biggest or probably the only successful business of Google is search advertising. So much for innovation!
At the rate at which we have forgot Yahoo, Google should know that it can’t take its success for granted.

The success of Microsoft heralded the true beginning of the Information Age, where the world’s richest private individual became so solely because of computer software (intellectual property). The recent success of Google heralds the true beginning of cyberspace, where the ability to quickly and reliably find information amongst the bits flying around the Web is paramount.

Great stuff, we need more of these companies. From another point of view, it’s interesting to note that our lives haven’t REALLY changed that much in the last 10+ years. We had email then, we have it now, MS products have become more robust, we find stuff more easily through Google, but really, are we doing something new that we weren’t doing before? Maybe working from home more ;)

Also, central to thinking about the future is to be very careful to distinguish between Microsoft and Google in terms of how they each see their own futures in the web-space, and how they are building towards them — very different, I suspect; there is plenty of room for both.

These are some impressive numbers, I must say, Goggle is in fact my favorite search engine and not only… however, I do appreciate Microsoft’s efforts in the consumer market, lets face it… Microsoft produces products, Google? only virtual…
and –RG i assure you it wont take long before Google gets out-Googled…. the first one that have just set the step for it is cuil.com which came out to public and made a strong announcement that they are better than google… go figure… but as they say… stay tuned :o)

These have been thoughtful responses. It’s true that the ‘first 10 years’ comparison is between two different fruits. (I stopped as I wrote ‘apples’.) Microsoft sold DOS for the first 10 years. Google relied on an Internet, nonexistent when Microsoft started. They did & to great extent continue to sell different products and services to same users.

Google has tried to move in on some Microsoft turf (e.g., spreadsheets & word processing, with very limited success) & continues to do so (e.g., Chrome browser). At the same time, Microsoft has attempted to usurp some of Google’s search market. But, so far, they’re more like beer & chips — complements — rather than Ford & GM — true competitors.

Google will take over Microsoft in the Web arena in the next five years or less. Most of the Microsoft products are geared to work in a personal or standalone computer. Changing this paradigm for Microsoft has become a major task for most of their software has to be changed from the ground up. Something that you do not simply. Imagine, it has taken Microsoft 33 years to be where they are now. They missed the Web boat many years ago.

I think they’ve compared google to the wrong comany. Should have compared it to yahoo & aol. Two companies that were on top of the internet heap who got arrogant, cocky and soon crashed down. At this pace you’re getting there google. Keep up the good work…

Very impressive, especially the productivity per employee. Much of MS is outsourced to contractors and much of Google is technology, but impressive as numbers none the less. If Ballmer could outsource everything, he would be one productive guy.

Good examples of scalable enterprises. MS will hit the wall sooner than GOOG as MS is a media company that will eventually be pay-per-view while others package their business around free content and free tools relying on internet scalability for profit.

MS is a software company that eventually became obsolete, but isn’t that often true of innovators. Bye, bye upgradeable towers, remember them? The PC came and went, we headed back to portable dumb terminals.

Yahoo was number one in search then Google simplified everything. Yahoo is older but doesn’t have any more tricks.
So, it’s like big brother asking his little brother for some help…
Yahoo’s time has past which it’s Googles time….

1) each one wants to be the dominant and they try to enter in each new field or model that appears; each wants to aggregate startups and this is too bad for innovation, that concentrate in just a few companies.

MS is well known for playing dirty and I think that G is even worse because of the amount of information it has. At one time, the G employees were prohibit to give interviews to http://news.cnet.com/, because this site have shown personal financial information about their president, obtained using the G search.

2) as a consequence of their behavior, they do not have me as a user. As an aggravating point, I could say that they do not even know me.

For those of you that also do not know me, I am an unknown High School Math teacher, paranoic about those 2 monsters and the cell phones.

By the way: I never had one, although I am kind of fascinated by the iPhone, that did not arrive here yet, but I already had in my heads and saw all the presentations of Steve.

The other problem of the iPhone, for me, is that it has too much of the G inside it.

If I ever get the courage of buying one iPhone, I want to be sure that I will not have to see the G search as the default search engine.

I would need some app like Acid Search, that did this in the Safari browser.

This is just to show you how difficult It is to be free of both companies.